Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T23:01:52.887Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“Without Any More Law Than Their Own Caprice”: Cotton Textile Workers and the Challenge to Factory Authority During the Mexican Revolution*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 February 2009

Jeffrey Bortz
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Much current literature argues that the Mexican revolution was not a revolution at all, but rather a series of rebellions that did not fundamentally alter the social order. Similarly, many scholars assert the changes in the Mexican work world during the Mexican revolution were the result of a paternalistic state rather than the product of the actions of workers. This article examines cotton textile workers' relationship to authority in the workplace during the most violent phase of Mexico's revolution, 1910–1921. The results suggest that revolution indeed gripped the country, one that energized the country's still emerging factory proletariat. There is compelling evidence that millhands throughout Mexico continuously and successfully challenged the authority of owners and supervisors, fundamentally altering the social relations of work. It is this “hidden” revolution in the factories that explains changes in labor law, labor organization, and worker power in the immediate post-revolutionary period. The effectiveness of the workers' challenge to authority is what explains: 1) the new regime's need to unionize; 2) the development of pro-labor labor law after the revolution; 3) the power of unions after 1920. In short, workers' challenge to authority during the revolution is what explains the labor outcome of the revolution afterwards.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , August 1997 , pp. 253 - 288
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1997

References

1 LaFrance, David G., “Labour and the Mexican Revolution: Presidente Francisco I. Madero and the Puebla Textile Workers”, European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies (06 1983), p. 59.Google Scholar

2 Important examples include Clark, Marjorie Ruth, Organized Labor in Mexico (Chapel Hill, 1934)Google Scholar; Ashby, Joe C., Organized Labor and the Mexican Revolution Under Lazaro Cardenas (Chapel Hill, 1967)Google Scholar; Ruiz, Ramon, Labor and the Ambivalent Revolutionaries, Mexico, 1911–1923 (Baltimore, 1976)Google Scholar; and Middlebrook, Kevin J., The Paradox of Revolution (Baltimore, 1995)Google Scholar. Each of these books – palhbreaking when they were published – focuses on unions and their relationship to the stale. Hart, John M., Anarchism and the Mexican Working Class, 1860–1931 (Austin, 1987)Google Scholar is less about unions, more about radical leaders. The series edited by Casanova, Pablo González, La Clase Obrera en la Historia de México (Mexico, various years)Google Scholar is organized by presidential sexenios.

3 Dr All, “La Importancia Mundial de la Revolución Mexicana,” Confederación Revolucionaria, Conferencias Públicas, Teatro Arbeu, 2 02 1915.Google Scholar

4 Tannenbaum, Frank. The Mexican Agrarian Revolution (New York, 1929), p. 2.Google Scholar

5 Kalz, Friedrich, “Villa: Reform Governor of Chihuahua”, in Wolfskill, George and Richmond, Douglas W., Essays on the Mexican Revolution (Austin, 1979), p. 27.Google Scholar

6 Ruiz, Ramon, The Great Rebellion. Mexico 1905–1924 (New York, 1980), p. 409.Google Scholar

7 Womack, John, “The Mexican Revolution, 1910–1920”, in Bethell, Leslie (ed.), Mexico Since Independence (Cambridge, 1991), p. 129.Google Scholar

8 Brading, D. A., “National Politics and the Populist Tradition”, in Brading, D. A. (ed.), Caudillo and Peasant in the Mexican Revolution (Cambridge, 1980), p. 1.Google Scholar

9 Hart, , Anarchism.Google Scholar

10 Meyer, Michael C. and Sherman, William L., The Course of Mexican History (New York, 1991), p. 575.Google Scholar

11 Tamayo, Jaime, La clase obrera en la historia de Mexico (Mexico, 1987), p. 290.Google Scholar

12 Middlebrook, , The Paradox, p. 5.Google Scholar

13 Casanova, González, La Clase ObreraGoogle Scholar; Middlebrook, , The Paradox.Google Scholar

14 Novo, Salvador, The War of the Fatties and Other Stories from Aztec History (Austin, 1994) p. xl.Google Scholar

15 Rojas, José Fernández, La Revolución Mexicana de Porfirio Díaz a Victoriano Huerta 1910–1913 (Mexico, 1913).Google Scholar

16 Berlanga, Manuel Aguirre, Revolución y Reforma, Génesis legal de la Revolución Constitucionalista (Mexico, 1918).Google Scholar

17 Casanova, González, La Clase Obrera, Tomo 6Google Scholar; idem.En el Primer Gobierno Constitucional (1917–1920) (Mexico City. 1980), p. 12.

18 Even though the revisionist school is influential, the consensus still defends Mexico's revolution. Knight's massive study represents this ambiguity, yet its very title – The Mexican Revolution – expresses its conclusion.

19 Although there were many scattered factories, Puebla/Tlaxcala, Mexico City and Veracruz (Orizaba) generated 71 per cent of national production.

20 Navarro, Moíses González, Las Huelgas Textiles en el Porfiriato (Puebla, 1970).Google Scholar

21 Anderson, Rodney, Outcasts in Their Own Land, Mexican Industrial Workers, 1906–1911 (DeKalb, 1976), ch. 4.Google Scholar

22 Anderson, , OutcastsGoogle Scholar; Hart, , Anarchism.Google Scholar

23 Unión de veteranos del trabajo, Sucesos del Trabajo y sus Luchas de Antaño. Obra que narra los sufrimientos del trabajador desde 1800 a 1907 (Puebla, 1938). p. 111.Google Scholar

24 For an excellent summary of the Díaz regime, see Katz, Friedrich, “The Liberal Republic and the Porfiriato, 1867–1910”, in Bethell, Leslie (ed.), Mexico Since Independence (Cambridge, 1991)Google Scholar. For the situation of industrial workers, see Anderson, , Outcasts.Google Scholar

25 For Madero, “the aim was the realization of the great democratic ideal; and the means were free and fair elections, municipal freedom, and a respect for states rights”: Knight, Alan, The Mexican Revolution (Lincoln, 1986), vol. 1, p. 58Google Scholar. The decent folk -“la gente decente” -was a popular term at the time, aptly expressing the divide between Mexico's upper and lower classes.

26 With regard to similar situations in France, Russia and China, Skocpol said “No longer reinforced by the prestige and coercive power of autocratic monarchy, the existing class relations became vulnerable to assaults from below. Social-revolutionary political crises emerged, as Lenin once so aptly put it, when it became ‘impossible for the ruling classes to maintain their rule in an unchanged form’”: Skocpol, Theda, States and Social Revolutions (Cambridge, 1993), p. 51.Google Scholar

27 Tannenbaum, , The Mexican Agrarian RevolutionGoogle Scholar; Knight, , The Mexican Revolution.Google Scholar

28 El Imparcial (Mexico City), 21 01 1912, p. 1Google Scholar. Although contemporaries understood the importance of the strike, later historians ignored it. Ramírez Rancaño has the strike beginning in mid-January and circumscribed to Mexico City. Carr also starts the strike in mid-January without mentioning it was a textile movement. Hart completely ignores it. Rancaño, Mario Ramírez, burguesia textil y política en la revolución mexicana (Mexico, 1987), pp. 39–42Google Scholar; Carr, Barry, el movimiento obrero y la política en méxico 1910–1929 (Mexico, 1991), p. 50Google Scholar; Hart, , Anarchism, ch. 8.Google Scholar

29 The factories were La Economía, Patriotísmo, Molino de Enmedio, Amatlán, Mayorazgo, La Constancia, La Teja, Santo Domingo, Santa María, Santa Cruz, Independencia, Covadonga, El Valor, as well as Metepec and El León in Atlixco: El Imparcial, 22 12 1911, p. 1.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., 29 December 1911, p. 8.

31 Ibid., 13 January 1912, p. 2.

32 Ibid., 15 January 1912, p. 1.

33 Ibid., 20 January 1912, p. 5.

34 Ibid., 13 January 1912, p. 2.

35 Ibid., 5 January 1912, p. 1.

36 Ibid., 13 January 1912, p. 2.

37 Ibid., 5 January 1912, p. 1.

38 Ibid., 16 January 1912, p. 6; 18 January 1912, p. 1; 20 January 1912, p. 5; 23 January 1912, p. 8.

39 Ibid., 18 January 1912, p. 1.

40 Ibid., 21 January 1912, pp. 1, 10.

41 Pedrueza, Antonio Ramos, “A los obreros de las Fábricas de Hilados y Tejidos de la República”, 4 08 1912Google Scholar, Archivo General de la Nación (AGN), Departamento del Trabajo (DT), Caja 50, Expediente 25.

42 Pedrueza, Ramos, “A los obreros”, 4 08 1912Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 50, Exp. 25.

43 Contrato de Trabajo, AGN, DT, Caja 978, Exp. 3.

44 The 1912 contract was replaced by the 1927 contract. After the approval of the latter, in 1928 the government convened a tripartite group to draft a national labor code, which became the 1931 Ley Federal del Trabajo.

45 Sesión, , 29 07 1912Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 15, Exp. 18; and El Imparcial, 2 08 1912, p. 8.Google Scholar

46 Rojas, Fernández, La Revolución Mexicana, p. 216.Google Scholar

47 Vallejo, Alberto Sánches to Presidente de la Oficina del Trabajo, 10 02 1912Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 8, Exp. 4.

48 Ibid.

49 Ibid.

50 Ibid.: “Comprendernos que sea efecto del triunfo que acaban de tener, pero es el caso que ya no admiten ni observaciones ni castigos en ninguna forma […]”

51 Soto, José González y Hno. to Director del DT, 10 08 1912Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 7, Exp. 28: “estos insensatos obreros […]”.

52 Gerente to Director, Departamento del Trabajo, 6 06 1912Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 6, Exp. 1.

53 Vallejo, Sánches to Presidente, 10 02 1912Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 8, Exp. 4.

54 El Imparcial, 23 01 1912, p. 8 and 27 01 1912, p. 1.Google Scholar

55 Aguilar, Candido, Número 11, 19 10 1914Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 88, Exp. 19.

56 See, for example, the complaint in de Mier, Viuda to Director del Departamento del Trabajo, 18 11 1914Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 88, Exp. 20.

57 Díaz, José Natividad et al. , 11 01 1915Google Scholar. AGN, DT, Caja 104, Exp. 10.

58 Ibid.

59 Díaz, José Natividad and Viveros, Luis to Gerente de la Compañía Industrial de Orizaba S.A., 8 02 1915Google Scholar; Gerente, to Sindicato, , 8 02 1915Google Scholar; Díaz, José Natividad and Viveros, Luis to Jiménez, Marcos López, 12 02 1915Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 98, Exp. 2.

60 In December 1914, Cocolapam workers struck, brought in government inspectors to arbitrate, then relumed to work without anybody losing their job. Galindo, Daniel to Director, Departamento del Trabajo, 21 12 1914Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 91, Exp. 19.

61 Hart worked with Casa publications and autobiographies to write a fine study of the organization, its strengths and weaknesses.

62 “hay que conseguirlo a tiros y no por medio de leyes”: Hinojosa, Enrique H. et al. 15 03 1915Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 104, Exp. 11.

63 “la masa de obreros que por mucho tiempo han sido vejados y vilependiados por los explotadores y por los malos gobiernos”: Hinojosa, , 15 03 1915.Google Scholar

64 “la condición de servidumbre para los mexicanos”: Memorandum, , “En el orden en que […]”, n.d, AGN, DT, Caja 104, Exp. 11.Google Scholar

65 Ibid.

66 Ibid.

67 Norcross, and Taylor, to Jiménez, López, 7 02 1915Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 97, Exp. 13.

68 Díaz, José Natividad and Viveros, Luis to Gerente de la Compania Yndustrial de Orizaba, 8 02 1915, AGN, DT. Caja 98, Exp. 2.Google Scholar

69 Gerente, to Sindicato, , 8 02 1915Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 98, Exp. 2.

70 Díaz, José Natividad and Viveros, Luis to Administrador de la fabrica Cerritos, 12 02 1915Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 98, Exp. 2; Castillo, Norberto to Jiménez, Marcos López, 12 02 1915Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 98, Exp. 1.

71 Hernández, Féderico to Taylor, José, 22 04 1915Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 97, Exp. 14.

72 Ibid.

73 “conformarse con […] las costumbres establecidas”: Taylor, Joseph to Jiménez, Marcos López, 23 04 1915Google Scholar, AGN. DT, Caja 97, Exp. 14.

74 “un hombre despota inepto y abandonado de sus obligaciones […] si incistimos llega a decir que se le parece a uno y si no que la calle es ancha […]”: Martínez, Manuel Sánches et al. to Díaz, Manuel R., 28 04 1915Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 97, Exp. 14.

75 “que a ese por ningun motivo lo ocuparia por que constantemente le estava asiendo cargos y refutaciones sin ningun fundamento […]”: Díaz, Manuel R. to Jiménez, Marcos López, 8 05 1915Google Scholar, AGN. DT, Caja 97, Exp. 14.

76 Díaz, Manuel R. to Jiménez, Marcos López, 25 05 1915Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 97, Exp. 14.

77 Taylor, Joseph to Director del Departamento del Trabajo, 12 05 1915Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 97, Exp. 14.

78 Díaz, to Jiménez, López, 25 05 1915Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 97, Exp. 14.

79 “que nadie tiene derecho a lo superfluo mientras los que trabajan carecen de lo necesario”: El Dictamen (Veracruz), 5 01 1916, p. 1.Google Scholar

80 Ibid.

81 Ibid., 25 January 1916, p. 1.

82 Ibid., 27 January 1916, p. 1. Aguilar was a key political ally of Carranza. His use of “the Revolution owes them […]” later became post-revolutionary code in Mexico, where “the Revolution” symbolized legitimacy. During the actual fighting, however, the use of this term meant that workers were winning their conflict with owners, to whom the revolution owed little.

83 El Dictamen, 21 02 1916, p. 1Google Scholar; El Pueblo (Mexico City), 22 02 1916, p. 4.Google Scholar

84 Most factories paid a daily rather than hourly wage. Overtime was the rate paid for work beyond the standard workday, the “jomada”. Textile factories also employed piece-work systems, sometimes in conjunction with the daily wage.

85 Acta del Sindicato, 13 06 1916Google Scholar, Archivo General del Estado de Veracruz (AGEV), Departamento de Economía y Previsión Social (DEPS), 1916, Exp. 703 (21–c).

86 Acta del Sindicato, 14 06 1916Google Scholar, AGEV, DEPS, 1916, Exp. 703 (21–c).

87 Acta, 15 06 1916.Google Scholar

88 Womack, , “The Mexican Revolution”, p. 154.Google Scholar

89 A review of Labor Office archives – AGN, DT – indicates that virtually every large mill in the core textile regions had its own Mesa Directiva by 1915.

90 Hart, , Anarchism, p. 116.Google Scholar

91 Hart clearly sees the end of anarchism as the predominant ideology among workers in the defeat of the 1916 strike. One is left to conclude that this left the field open to the collaborationist policies of the CROM. For national confederations this may be true, but what happens inside factories is more complicated and contradictory. Sometimes the confederations strengthened rebellious workers in spite of their pragmatism: Hart, , Anarchism, ch. 10.Google Scholar

92 El Demócrata (Mexico City), 3 11 1916, p. 5.Google Scholar

93 El Universal (Mexico City), 4 11 1916, p. 1.Google Scholar

94 Ibid., 6 November 1916, p. 1; 8 November 1916, pp. 1, 3.

95 Ibid., 10 November 1916, p. 1; 11 November 1916, p. 1

96 Ibid., 21 November 1916, p. 1.

97 Meyer, Michael C. and Sherman, William L.. The Course of Mexican History (Oxford, 1991), p. 545.Google Scholar

98 Clark, , Organized Labor, p. 68.Google Scholar

99 Ruiz, Ramon Eduardo, The Great Rebellion, Mexico 1905–1924 (New York, 1980), p. 293.Google Scholar

100 Middlebrook, , The Paradox, p. 77.Google Scholar

101 Franco, Abraham to del Estado, Gobernador, 19 03 1918Google Scholar, Archivo Histórico del Estado de Mexico, Trabajo e Industria, Vol. 74, Exp. 51. The workshop was a taller de zacatón. Franco claimed that the group included albaniles, carpinteros, and many workers except raiceros.

102 “alegando imposibilidad de hacer prevalecer su autoridad administrativa […]”: Acta, Junta Central de Conciliación y Arbitraje, 20 09 1919Google Scholar, AGEV, JCCA, 1918, Exp. 59.

103 Acta, 20 09 1919.Google Scholar

104 The campesinado also continued to exert pressure. Certainly in the two major textile states, Puebla and Veracruz, the agraristas continued with their own demands throughout the 1920s.

105 “he didn't feel like doing what he was told”: de Tagle, Francisco Sánches to del Trabajo, Jefe del Depto., 19 01 1920Google Scholar. AGN, DT, Caja 222, Exp. 4.

106 Ibid.

107 The “empleados” were typically white-collar workers loyal to administration while the “obreros” were blue-collar workers generally disdained by the upper classes.

108 Gómez Haro and E. Artasanchy to Srio. de Industria, Comercio, y Trabajo, , 27 02 1920Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 213, Exp. 33.

109 Ibid.; El Universal, 4 11 1916, p. 1.Google Scholar

110 Haro, Gómez and Artasanchy, E., 27 02 1920.Google Scholar

111 Ibid.

112 Ibid.

113 “gente de esta naturaleza no podía tener trabajo”: Conde, Vda. de Francisco M. to Presidente del Centro Industrial Mejicano, 22 11 1920Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 213, Exp. 21.

114 Ibid.

115 Sucs, Manuel M. Conde, to Dept. del Trabajo, , 27 03 1920Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 214, Exp. 5.

116 Letter to del Estado, Gobernador, 31 03 1920Google Scholar; Juncos, Antonio to Director del Dept. del Trabajo, 8 04 1920Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 214, Exp. 5.

117 There are a number of institutional studies of labor federations, including Carr, El movimiento obrero.

118 Hernández, Gustavo to de Tlaxcala, Gobernador del Estado, 10 12 1920Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 214, Exp. 6.

119 These agricultural laborers used the term “trabajadores campesinos” to describe themselves. Gutiérrez, Catarino et al. , to de Tlaxcala, Gobernador del Estado, 20 10 1920Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 214, Exp. 6.

120 Ibid.

121 Díaz, Vicente and Díaz, Agustin to Hernández, Gustavo, 21 10 1920Google Scholar; Martínez, Eulalio et al. to Presidente de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos, 17 12 1920Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 214, Exp. 6.

122 Sucs, Manuel M. Conde and Golzarri, Ramon to Centro Industrial Mexicano, 22 10 1920Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 214, Exp. 6.

123 Hernández, Gustavo and Díaz, Vicente to Gobernador del Estado de Tlaxcala, 23 10 1920Google Scholar, AGN, DT. Caja 214, Exp. 6.

124 Acta, 18 11 1920Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 214, Exp. 6.

125 Ibid., 8 January 1921, AGN, DT, Caja 214, Exp. 6.

126 Gómez, Epifanio to Florez, Esteban, 30 11 1920Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 214, Exp. 6.

127 Jesús Rivero Quijano to Srio. de Industria, Comercio, , y Trabajo, , 13 12 1920Google Scholar, AGN, DT, Caja 214, Exp. 6.

128 Memorandum, n.d., AGN, DT, Caja 214, Exp. 6.

129 El Impartial, 7 08 1912, p. 2.Google Scholar

130 Departamento de la Estadistica Nacional, La Estadistica del Trabajo (Mexico, 1924), p. 15.Google Scholar

131 Clark, , Organized Labor, p. 192.Google Scholar

132 Smith, S. A., “Workers and Supervisors: St Petersburg 1905–1917 and Shanghai 1895–1927”, Past and Present, 139 (1993), p. 131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

133 A lively description of the corruption and control of the CROM is in Clark, , Organized Labor.Google Scholar

134 “Organized labor's entry into national politics was among the most significant consequences of Mexico's 1910–1920 social revolution”: Middlebrook, , The Paradox, p. 72.Google Scholar